Greenfield Residents Support National Petition to Change School Start Times

An effort to change the school start times in the Greenfield School District may , but the effort to make a change at the national level is gaining steam.

Terra Snider, a Maryland woman, started an online petition on SignOn.org in an effort to “Promote legislation to prevent public schools from starting before 8 a.m.”

The petition, which has received publicity from , was up to 624 signatures as of Nov. 17, including seven from people in Wisconsin.

Terri (no last name provided) of Brookfield, petition signee No. 427, wrote, “Early school hours produces sluggish cognitive functions which means a student is no better in learning than if he/she had all of their senses blocked,” on the SignOn.org petition.

Also among the Wisconsinites to support the petition are Dolores Skowronek and former Greenfield School Board member Cathy Walsh. Both were key supporters of time changes in Greenfield.

“It looks like there ae others out there that are unhappy with their school start time,” Skowronek said in an email to Greenfield Patch. “Hopefully, this petition will raise awareness.”

School start times have been debated in Greenfield for more than three years.

In May, the decided against spending $208,000 for new busing routes to change the high school’s start time from 7:10 a.m. to either 7:45 a.m. or 8:10 a.m. Only two board members – Rick Moze and Pam Sierzchulski – were in favor of the moves.

Snider previously started a , according to Dunedin Patch, before starting the SignOn.org petition. 

"It seemed like a shame to waste the momentum the first petition generated, and the publicity that was just starting up when the ," she posted about the second petition. 

Here is a link to the signon.org petition.